"In advertising, as in many other places, you want to hide"

My early impressions of advertising were that it was a very inclusive space. I felt this was not a place with any kind of bias. There were a lot of names that looked like they belonged to minorities: a lot of Parsis, Muslims and Christians. But over the last few decades, I see that going down, and I don’t know why and how that happened. I’ve no theory. Maybe along with all the diversity agendas happening in workplaces, we should have this as well.

Reviewing a portfolio the other evening, I saw some work talking about categories of people and it included a naturist, a homeless person and a Muslim.

It brought home what being a Muslim is; it’s about being the other. You get categorised and learn to live with it. I’ve been there since I was a kid. In class 6, I was my teacher’s absolute favourite and then, one day, at a picnic, I pulled my school tie down slightly. And my teacher, who absolutely loved me, said ‘Today, you are looking like a Muslim.’

In advertising, as in many other places, you want to hide. At one of the agencies where I worked, a girl started calling me ‘Mozzie’. I used to cringe since I didn’t want to stand out for being Muslim. But this girl would yell it out across the office. With her, it came from a place of fondness, but it meant something else to me.

I’ve been especially hard if I’ve had someone applying from the same community. I didn’t want to be seen as the guy who promotes ‘apne log.’ I don’t know if any other community feels that way. I hope the generations to come don’t have these issues to worry about.

But I must say this: I may have felt whatever I felt, but as a professional, while in the industry I never felt targeted or that my work was not finding a place because I’m from a certain community. In marketing, as in the advertising profession, I have to acknowledge, Naren my first partner and believer, Kiran Khalap, Rahul Kansal and eventually Balki, all of who never thought of me or any person as belonging to any religion as such, and the scores of others with who I have had deep and long relationships.

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